Scent Trail
by Sargaetorian
Summary: When it comes to the culprit of Sasuke's mysteriously disappearing clothes, all signs point to the one Sasuke least expects. Hinted SasuNaru fluff.
1. Chapter 1

**Scent Trail**

Sasuke was convinced that there was a thief in his building.

Whether it was a crazy fangirl of his, some maniac who really needed some clothes, or just a beggar gone bad, ever since he had returned to Konoha, all of his clothes had mysteriously gone missing.

It wasn't likely that it was an act of spite, since everyone had more or less opened up to Sasuke by now. Life was practically normal, though more out of habit than anything, the villagers still tended to avoid the Uchiha compound. It wasn't like Sasuke cared, though. He liked being left alone.

It was rather odd, however; whoever it was that was stealing his clothes never took any of his pants, undergarments, or socks. They seemed to favor his shirts, jackets, vests, robes, and ties, which was better than a strange obsession with Sasuke's pants or boxers, he supposed, but it was enraging nonetheless.

After a few weeks of opening his closet and discovering that more and more of his clothes were disappearing, he swallowed his pride and anger and went to the only person he felt that wouldn't tease him for sinking too low.

It started with once a month, and then once a week, and then practically once every day that Sasuke showed up on Naruto's doorstep with his arms crossed in an imposing stance, rolling his eyes at Naruto and demanding clothes from him. Naruto would complain, screwing his face up in frustration, but he always relented and brought Sasuke a shirt or two to borrow for the day. Thankfully, they were all plain and darkly colored, not at all like the garish clothes Naruto usually wore.

He did it so often that he'd memorized Naruto's scent, a rather thick but pleasant mix of pumpkin pie, cinnamon, and occasionally ramen. It made sense, though, as when Sasuke had opened his refrigerator when he barged into Naruto's house, he found only rows and rows of ramen and orange foods, particularly carrot cake and pumpkin pie, with a few jugs of milk and orange juice crammed in the middle of the mess.

There came a point when Sasuke just wouldn't check his closet anymore, and would just grab his pants, going out the door shirtless (much to Naruto's chagrin) up to the blonde's doorstep, asking for clothes day after day.

Oddly, Naruto never questioned his demands. Not that Sasuke would tell him why, anyway. It would be much too embarrassing for him, even if it was only his best friend that knew.

It was only on the day that Sasuke threw open his closet doors only to find every single upper-body garment missing from his house, that he realized why. Yelling out a rather foul curse word that would have even made the stone facades of the past Hokages wrinkle their noses, he threw open his front door to march over to the Hokage tower to report the ridiculous thievery.

He didn't even realize that there was a large box sitting on his doorstep until he tripped over it, his body sprawling out across the painted wood of the deck and his face nestled uncomfortably in the contents of the box.

He inhaled a resigned sigh through his nose, and stopped immediately when a very familiar scent entered his nostrils.

He raised his head and grabbed the flaps of the cardboard box, looking inside.

His clothes.

They were all inside it.

Grabbing the sides of the box, Sasuke hauled it inside and dumped the contents all on his bed, that familiar scent faintly filling his room.

Pumpkin pie and cinnamon, huh?

So _that_ was why Naruto never questioned Sasuke's abnormal need for clothes every day.

Sasuke smiled at the realization.

From that point on, whenever Sasuke's clothes went missing, he never even batted an eye. In fact, he'd celebrate internally whenever they did. They were always returned a day or two later, and then Sasuke would wear them as if nothing had happened to them.

He didn't mind, really, because they always returned smelling of Naruto.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **And finally, Naruto's point of view! I might end up making this into a three-shot just to tie it all up. What do you guys think?

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><p><strong>Naruto's POV<strong>

It had started when the younger kids in the Academy had wanted to play a game of Capture the Flag with Naruto. Naruto, of course, had happily accepted without any hesitation whatsoever.

The only problem was that none of the kids had anything they could use as a flag.

None of them, Naruto included, was willing to take off a jacket or a scarf, since the air already carried a chill of late autumn. The kids had looked around hopefully at one another, and then turned their gaze on Naruto, who held fast under their pleading, watery eyes for a good two seconds before melting into putty in their hands.

"…Fine," he grumbled, rubbing at the back of his head.

He turned around, heading back to the village and his apartment, smiling faintly at the collective cheers behind him. He strolled along leisurely, his hands in his pockets, waving a cheery hello to everyone who walked past him. There weren't a lot of people on the streets yet, seeing as Konohamaru and his gang had dragged Naruto out of bed at the crack of dawn.

Naruto was in the middle of unlocking his door when an ingenious idea struck him. A wide grin spread across his face as he yanked his key out of the doorknob and launched himself off the railing of the balcony, landing lightly on the rooftop of the neighboring building and racing as fast as he could toward his new destination: Sasuke's house.

Naruto had only been to Sasuke's house once or twice, and the only memory he had of it was that it was dark, gloomy, and radiated an aura of death, which suited Sasuke completely. As he entered the Uchiha compound, a chill raced down Naruto's spine at the cold, empty buildings. As much as Sasuke liked being alone, Naruto thought, it must have been lonely to live there by himself.

Naruto smirked. Sasuke would _definitely_ not appreciate having one of his perfect, white shirts being desecrated at the hands of a large crowd of ten-year-olds. Leaping up to the balcony and testing the window to Sasuke's room, he found that it wasn't locked and slid it open as quietly as he could.

Grabbing the windowsill with one hand and putting all his weight on it to lift both his feet inside, landing with a soft thump and crouching down, he stole a quick glance around the room and almost choked when he saw Sasuke's bed.

It was probably three times bigger than it needed to be, but his deceptively large room made it seem smaller than it really was. Seriously, what kind of seventeen year old needed a bed of _that _size? The bed was covered in mussed up, dark blue sheets, and Sasuke was sprawled on his stomach haphazardly on the mattress, his head turned to the side on his pillow and his arm hanging off the side of the bed with the sheets barely covering his hips.

This all wouldn't be so bad, if Sasuke hadn't been naked.

Naruto let out the breath that he'd unconsciously been holding, his face turning bright red out of mortification. Trying to stop his heart from beating so fast, he kept his body low and crept up to Sasuke's closet.

When he pulled the door aside, the door let out a loud squeak. Naruto froze as Sasuke stirred behind him, but thankfully, he didn't wake up. Naruto let out a relieved sigh and grabbed the shirt Sasuke sported every day, carefully taking it off the hanger and creeping back to the window with the shirt wrapped around the back of his neck. He paused for a moment, thinking, and then doubled back to the closet and grabbed a few more shirts. Just in case the little ones managed to destroy the first shirt, which Naruto had no doubt that they would do.

Before he took off, he glanced back at Sasuke's blissfully unaware face and snickered lightly before jumping out the window again.

He didn't see that Sasuke's eyes fluttered open slowly, before closing again.

Naruto cursed under his breath as he walked through the village at sunset, carrying a bundle of notably _pristine_ shirts over his shoulder. He clicked his tongue in an irritated manner. Who knew that kids could be so considerate?

Naruto shook his head. No, kids were _not _considerate. They were only considerate when Naruto wanted them to be inconsiderate. Either that, or they had caught sight of the proud Uchiha crest stitched onto the back of the shirt, and had known that if they ruined it, they'd have one hell of an angry bastard on their heels.

Naruto sighed, cracking his neck. He had to admit that he'd had a lot of fun with them. They were surprisingly vigilant, though Naruto did have to lower his level of ninja capabilities to make it a fair game. They'd insisted on playing six rounds, trading off Naruto on each of their teams. The kids had assigned him the role of capturing enemies on their territory, which usually resulted in Naruto pouncing on unsuspecting children and tickling them until they couldn't breathe.

Naruto rolled his head back, looking at the orange hues of the sky as evening set in. He really didn't want to go back to Sasuke's house and risk him spotting Naruto as he tried to put the shirts back. And besides, it would be a lot more fun to keep the shirts around and see how long he could mess with the teme's head.

And so, with a winning smirk, Naruto avoided the Uchiha compound and instead veered off the village road into his own apartment.

When he unlocked the door and opened it, he immediately walked to his room and collapsed on his bed, feeling a wave of tiredness wash over him. Rolling over onto his left side, he stretched out his arms, feeling his fingers brush against the cool plaster of the wall behind him.

As he did so, the shirts on his right shoulder fell off and landed on his face. Naruto groaned as his vision was suddenly obscured by fabric, and he lifted a hand to clumsily lift them off, when-

He stopped dead in his tracks. Inhaling deeply, he frowned. There was a really, _really_ nice smell coming from the shirts. Pulling them off and inspecting them, he wondered what kind of detergent Sasuke used. He'd have to ask sometime.

But then again, he thought as an immensely relaxing feeling came over him, Sasuke probably wouldn't tell him. And maybe this was his natural scent. Naruto thought Sasuke would smell like death and angst, not that he pondered Sasuke's scent very often, but as it turned out, it was a pleasant mix of wood smoke and something else he couldn't quite place.

Naruto buried his nose into the shirts, feeling his eyelids start to fall. Seriously, it should be illegal to smell this good.

And that was how Naruto ended up falling asleep with his arms wrapped around a bundle of his rival's shirts and his legs curled up around them.

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><p>A few days later, Naruto frowned and prodded at the shirts as if they were alive.<p>

How come they didn't smell nice anymore?

Gathering them up, Naruto inhaled deeply and nodded affirmatively.

He'd either gotten used to the smell, or Naruto's own scent had covered it up.

Therefore, Naruto came to the conclusion that he'd simply have to steal more shirts while Sasuke was sleeping. And not just because he liked the smell, mind you. It was for personal needs as well, to one-up Sasuke. Also, he thought it would be funny to see a moody Sasuke storming around shirtless, looking for a shirt to wear.

Some very, very intricate research had proven that Sasuke's pants didn't smell as strongly of him as his shirts. He was _not_ about to touch the bastard's boxers, and his arm warmers didn't really smell like much either. It was also an act of mercy on Naruto's part, since Sasuke would more likely be more humiliated walking around with a clear lack of pants than a shirt.

And so it happened that Naruto woke up at three in the morning, a mischievous gleam in his blue eyes, and he set off to Sasuke's house while desperately hoping that Sasuke wasn't sleeping naked again.

Then again, he thought as he sped off, the darkness of the night would hopefully conceal it. He opened the window again as he jumped onto the balcony of Sasuke's house and jumped in, admittedly being a lot less careful than he had the first night.

After stealing almost twice the number of shirts he'd stolen the first time, he jumped out of the window again, but not after stealing a glance at Sasuke.

It figured that the moonlight was shining directly onto Sasuke.

It also figured that Sasuke was naked. Again.

Naruto rolled his eyes, swallowing hard. If the moonlight made Sasuke's skin glow any more, Naruto would have mistaken him for Edward Cullen. But he didn't let his eyes linger for too long and he was out the window in seconds, quietly returning home to hopefully get a few more hours of sleep before morning came.

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><p>When morning came, there was a loud rap at his door. Naruto sat up grumpily, his eyes still glued shut, and one of Sasuke's shirts draped over his head. Slowly, he pulled the shirt off and ran his fingers through his hair, wincing as the knocking continued.<p>

God, how he hated repetitive sounds in the morning.

Naruto dragged himself out of bed, slightly aware that he was still in yesterday's clothes, and opened the door.

His eyes shot open and he let out an embarrassingly nervous giggle at who he saw on at his door.

"H-hey, Sasuke! What are you doing here?" Naruto laughed nervously, his smile a bit too bright.

Naruto was frozen, his mind a blur of terrified thoughts. He _sucked_ at lying.

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow at Naruto's disheveled appearance and slightly maniacal expression, but chose not to say anything. "Have you got a shirt I can borrow?"

Naruto frowned, his smile disappearing. "You're asking me?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Why else would I be on your doorstep, dobe?"

Naruto clicked his tongue at him and turned around. "Give me a sec."

Internally, Naruto was still panicking as he rummaged through his drawer to find a clean, plainly colored shirt. Had he been found out? Come on, he couldn't have possibly taken _that_ many shirts. Sasuke even had on a shirt right now, he couldn't possibly be out of them already.

Naruto returned and tossed a black t-shirt at Sasuke, asking as casually as he could, "So why do you need to borrow a shirt if you're already wearing one?"

Sasuke tugged his shirt off right in front of Naruto, whose jaw dropped to the floor and he averted his eyes immediately. "This one's old."

"Do that at home, you exhibitionist!"

Sasuke simply rolled his eyes again, waving at Naruto over his shoulder as he turned around. "See you later."

Oh, what Naruto would give for some peace and quiet.

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><p>Sasuke now came by so frequently that Naruto had actually started finding shirts for Sasuke to borrow the night before. He always hated being woken up in the early hours of dawn for Sasuke to get shirt after shirt, but he probably should have seen that coming before Naruto had stolen almost all of Sasuke's garments.<p>

Sasuke, being the total exhibitionist that he was, had recently begun showing up to Naruto's house ruffled and shirtless, which bothered Naruto immensely, but he thought it would bother Sasuke more.

Not that Sasuke had a body to be ashamed of, of course.

On this particular morning, however, Naruto had woken up to see an absolute mess of shirts scattered everywhere around his room. It was getting a bit out of hand, and it occurred to Naruto that maybe he should return the stolen property. The shirts were beginning to lose Sasuke's scent, anyway.

As he gathered up the shirts and threw them messily into a cardboard box, Naruto figured that he'd just go back a few days later when Sasuke's shirts smelled of Sasuke again, rather than Naruto himself.

Once Naruto had gathered up all the shirts, he made a quick trip to Sasuke's and dropped them off, returning home quickly for a few more hours of sleep.

After he got back home, he wondered what Sasuke must have thought of his mysteriously disappearing, and now returned, clothes. He laughed quietly at the thought of Sasuke's face when he'd see the large box on his doorstep, but he rather missed the Sasuke's scent already.

Oh well, Naruto thought, at least the smell would linger on the clothes Sasuke borrowed-

Wait a minute.

Naruto sat up in outrage.

Sasuke had never returned a single one of Naruto's shirts.

Naruto lay back down, blowing out an exasperated sigh. He'd just have to keep stealing Sasuke's shirts until they were returned, then. And so, with a lazy smile, Naruto drifted back to sleep.

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><p><strong>AN: **Reviews, favorites, and follows are always appreciated! nwn


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